I've never used it. Do not like it at all, but it's good for simple stuff, like Shane said. I leave it in category view for my parents' machine, and they have no trouble using it that way. They're older too, though, and they're technologically challenged, so to speak. If they get any kind of error message at all they freak out and don't know what to do, so they call me, lol.

Don't think I've ever used the category view. Or even the control panel itself as a whole for that matter. Been accessing whatever component I needed at the time via the start menu directly since at least XP, some of the more common ones I've also added as a context menu to the computer desktop icon. In 8 have them all pinned in their own group on the start screen. Same for administrative tools.

I usually just search for what I need in the start menu, otherwise I use category view, always. It's so, so much easier and faster to find things. That huge heap of tiny applets is horrible if you can't remember the exact name.

Especially since the column flow is ridiculous. Instead of going from top to bottom then from left to right they first go from left to right then from top to bottom. CONSISTENCY PLS MS.

I try to, unless I give up in frustration, more and more however I use the Windows 7 Start menu search to go to the exact control panel item because that is well indexed of all the things you can do in the control panel. Windows 8 is much more of a pain, not just finding the control panel for Desktop, but the search doesn't find anything as you type, you have to complete what you are typing for the search, then manually take control of the mouse and click 'settings' and then click what you want.